


The Ghost of Dreams

by Carbon65



Series: Not with a bang, but a wimper [2]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Cigarettes, End of the World, F/M, Guns, No Dialogue, Panic Attacks, Police state, Speculative, economic violence, office supply porn, systemic violence, this sounds absloutely delightful doesnt it?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 09:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15992486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbon65/pseuds/Carbon65
Summary: It's been a long time since he remembered his dreams. It's been long enough, but he doesn't know if he's awake or asleep, and if this is delight or nightmare.A sequel to Fairy Tales.





	The Ghost of Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tuppenny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuppenny/gifts).



> From the apocalypse prompt, ‘ yeah, i’m a good shot'
> 
> Warnings  
> \--------  
> systemic violence; guns; smoking; mentions of conversion therapy; police violence; internalized racism; economic violence; this is a speculative dystopian AU

It’s been a long time since he remembered his dreams. 

He used to sleep safely in his bed, the one with the washed out red sheets with their cowboy patterns, and he used to dream. As a kid, he’d wake up in the dark of his little bedroom, and push the doors open in the bright light. He’d tumble out, and bounce up into his moms’ bed and tell them his dream.

And then… and then… and then his sheets were grey from too many people and too many washes. And he was too tired from crying himself to sleep to dream at all. 

Now, he comes home tired to the little apartment he shares. He and Tony and Davey have the front bedroom, and it reminds him of the place he shared with his moms. He’s still got his little nook, tucked away behind sliding doors. Moving through the space is still a rabbit warren of dressers and plastic crates and shoes and laundry. And, even though his sheets are still grey, they’re his and they’re clean and he chose them. But, he’s too tired when he comes home from the warehouse to dream. He was too tired to dream. He’s been too tired to dream for so damn long. And then, he went to Jimmy. And saw her. And she haunts him. 

The dreams, they’re so realistic. They’re too realistic, some days. He can’t figure out if he’s really out during the day, seeing her, or if he’s just imagining it. Sometimes, it’s like he can feel the warmth of her just a hands span away, and the way her breathing had evened out while he’d been waiting in the growing dawn to feel safe enough to fall asleep. Sometimes, his hand traces over the spidery letters in that crisp black ink that won’t fade and the acid-free paper that’s meant to last. It will last, too, if he can manage to keep from folding and unfolding the sheet until it’s worn to bits.

So, he sees her, and he figures he must be dreaming. They’re on the work site. He and Race got themselves fired from the warehouse a few months ago. David had been talking the union crap, again. The stuff that scared management enough to not figure fire David, but to fire Jack and Race too, because they associated with him. ...The work site is better. At least he can see the sky and feel what might be the sun on his face.

They go all over the city to work, rather than just staying in their block by the warehouse. And, today, they’re up the Upper East Side, doing some big overhaul job. He and Race are out in the dumpster, Race taking a smoke break and he’s taking a piss. He hates the smell of smoke now. He used to not mind it so much: cigarettes smelled like his mom, and like Jimmy, like heavy coughing, raspy voices and glitter and shimmer. Cigarettes might never have smelled good, but at least they smelled safe.

Jimmy’s place is destroyed. Raided, burned out, emptied. All of Christopher Street’s that way, these days. There’s a story he heard ages ago about how the village was gentrifying. And it was. And then, the amendment came, and then the laws about conversion and aversion, then the other amendment, and then revocation. His moms got out before. His moms did, but they left him Jimmy. And now, Jimmy’s gone, too. Off Gotthard knows where. And Medda? He knows he won’t ever see Medda again, resplendent in glitter and surrounded by a halo of smoke.  
And damn it, he missing Jimmy. But, he mourns Medda.

And, even though he’s been dreaming about her, it still takes him a minute. Race nudges him, sprinkling hot ash on his arm, and he jumps. And then, looks up. And there she is.  
And it can’t be a dream, not at all. Not really. Because in his dreams, they’re someplace where the sky is blue and the grass is green, and it doesn’t smell like smoke. It doesn’t smell like anything, really, except laundry detergent.

He pulls up his fly, whispering her name under his breath. 

Race is the one who calls her name, the one who catches her attention. She wouldn’t have given the two of them any mind to begin with, and now Race has her attention. She might have decked him, if he’d called her sweetheart. Race probably would have, too. He’s probably mostly harmless, and he’s toned it down a lot since David’s sister sat him down and yelled at him. 

Davey’s sister can be terrifying. She’s the real union firebrand in the family, an actual real live UAW member. The kind of thing that makes it hard to get a job at all. But, she’d done it. And now, Davey’s gone after. And, God, it scares him. It scares him so much. 

Race calls her. And again. And a third time.

Kitty jerks her head up, looks him straight in the eye. There’s nothing coy about that gaze.

She comes over just as he manages to get the fly on his faded jeans zipped up. She’s immaculate in her jeans and her dark green waistcoat, her hair piled on her head in an impossible ponytail. Her nails are a perfect soft pink, her lips are a perfect rosy red. The only thing that mars the image are the black stains across her hands: smudges and smears on her finger tips from those black pens. And the faint pale line of where a twisted purity band should be. Not black or green, like she’s waiting for the glue to dry inside and seal the metal away. But like she took it off and wrapped it in a crumpled sheet of paper ripped from a notebook and pressed it into the hands of a boy she’d only just met. 

She greets him. She greets him warmly. And, somehow, it still feels awkward and stilted and improper. Like after what happened, they should do something more. But, they’re out here on the street. And God, even if they were from the same place, God, even then, he’s not sure he could do the scandalous thing he wants. She’s here, and she’s perfect, except those hands. 

And, he doesn’t fit, not at all. He’s in his dusty jeans, the ones that are covered in the fine fibers from getting into the fire retardant insulation they redid in the 50s, and the t-shirt of Davey’s that’s been worn paper thin. You can see the shadow of something on a cheap chain around his neck. He’s got on tennis shoes, the ones he used to wear in the warehouse. They’re falling apart, so old he’s got a hole in the left one. He’s saving up for a pair of steel toed boots, but the foreman made him sign something that said he waived his right until he got some. They wouldn’t let him work without the boots or the paper. And he’d needed the job.

And somehow, they’re talking. Race pulls out another cigarette, and offers the pack around. She surprises him by taking one, and pulling off a long drag. Girls like that, girls with purity rings and perfect nail polish, they always choke on their first cigarette in the movies. She blows smoke rings.

And then, the foreman comes out to see where they’ve gotten off to. He’s greasy. Not a bad man, not really. Just tired and overworked, head slowly compressed between looming brick walls of the skyscrapers and the dreams he’s not allowed to have. He’s greedy and petty and small, but he’s not a bad man. He still docks the time from their lunch. The extra five minutes they took. And five additional to remind them that their time belongs to the company, and not to them.

 

When they get off, she’s waiting for them. It’s late. The day’s gone longer then expected, with them cleaning up behind them and locking down the doors. It’s the clean up where they get caught. Clock out on time, and then get called back for “just a minute” and suddenly, you’ve cut into half of your commute sweeping floors and collecting empty cans to send to the dump. It’s important to keep the dumps full, because that’s how they build new land to take back what the rising oceans are stealing.

He can feel the heavy weight of his metro card in his thin wallet. If they leave now, if they hurry, they can ride the hot crowded train back to the company apartment. If they leave now, they can be safely back before the enforcers and concerned citizens come out, before the darkness and the dawn and loneliness. If they leave now, there’s a TV dinner and a television program to fill the holes he leaves in himself.

He tells Race to go ahead, and then he follows her to the temporary wooden steps into the shell of the house.

How’ve you been, she asks, nervous and empty. And, he doesn’t know what to say. Because he’s been everything and nothing. And he’s been waiting. And finally, he says good, and asks after her. And she talks about how she misses Bill, who he knew as Bowery, and she hopes he made it to Canada.  
And, maybe, maybe, that’s where he lets himself think that Jimmy is. That Jimmy made it up across the border, and he’s there and he and Medda are safe. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

And then, somehow, they fall into conversation. And he knows this can’t be a dream, because she says things he’d never have dared to think. Her hands dance and her words dance, and he tries to keep up. And, somehow, miracle beyond miracles, his public school education lets him. Somewhere, in between the patriotic indoctrination about how the Grand Old Party saved them all and the importance of a regimented schedule, he learned something.

They talk and they talk, until his phone alarm shrieks to let him know that he’s got fifteen minutes to get home before his metro card locks up. And then, he realizes how dark the sky has gotten.

She looks up, checks her own phone. Says the kind of words that aren’t supposed to pass those lips, and tells him to stay where he is. 

She comes back with a jacket for him, and one for her, and a pair of shoes. She shoves them at him, and in the glow of the phone and the yellow street light, he seems what they are. Boots. Not just any boots, but boot boots. The kind he needs for work. The kind that will let him rip up the contract. 

The word slips out of his mouth before he can stop it. And damn, there’s no way she’d ever think he was cool, not after that night, but he’d wanted her to. He’d wanted her to so badly. Because, he’d never imagined, never planned on someone like her. And here she is, here she’s real. She presses them into his hands, and then waits for him to fumble them onto his feet. And damn it, he doesn’t know how he’ll explain them. And he doesn’t know how he’ll explain it to her.

She takes his hand, his bare hand, like he did so many weeks ago. And, she tugs him through her streets. In a jacket she’s handed him and with the shoes in a paper shopping bag. He’s got it now, but she will take it home. He’s got pride. He doesn’t mind honest hard work. The work they do, it isn’t honest, but that’s the system. And he wishes, he wishes he knew how to bring together the hundreds and thousands of voices to take things back and get a fair wage. But, his voice isn’t loud enough and it doesn’t matter how many rallies and how many marches, powerful people want to hold onto power.

The places where Kitty leads him get darker, and more like home. Not as nice, but not he worker’s ghetto, not yet. These are quiet streets full of quiet buildings built not so long ago: sleeping people who hung onto that middle class life the Jacobs siblings exchanged for union hymns. Here, there are police officers patrolling the streets at night. They answer to money, just like all the cops in the city. In the neighborhood where they were, the police answer to money to let people off. And, down where Jack belongs, they lay down the law to keep people in, and to keep them cycling. Here, though, here is some no man’s land where you don’t know.

And, even though he’s got the New York accent to prove he was born here, Davey says you can tell he learned spanish right alongside, if you listen. And, He takes after his mama, with her dark hair. His skin browned dark enough in the sun that it’s getting harder and harder for him to pass as just Irish anymore. He used to be proud. He still is proud. It’s just… it’s not illegal, but what was hard under the father is rapidly getting codified under the son. And, it’s easier to lie about that, too.

The streets are peaceful under their curfew as Kitty strides purposefully through them and he trails after. And, of course, with the curfew down, there are only a few reasons why anyone should be walking.

They’re talking quietly, about Article 13 and Ajit Pai, and California. And then, suddenly, here’s a man and a dog and something shiny and silver.

And then, something shiny and silver comes out of Kitty’s bag. 

And, he freezes.

He freezes. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do. Freeze. Slowly, slowly, move your hands to your head. Lay down.

He’s barely breathing as he feels the wet nose go over him. The sidewalk is cold against his cheek, and it creeps up cold through his pants. But, with her there, they won’t dare, now with him here, following instructions. He’s barely breathing, and the wet nose is there, and then it’s gone. And god, he likes the idea of dogs. He thinks his moms had one, before they had him, a rescue pit who liked to sit on the couch. He likes the idea of a dog, like the ones you see on TV. But in practice, the size and the teeth and the muscle and the noise scare him.

And then, she’s touching him again, apologizing and touching him and lifting him up. She’s calling a car, because the man is right, and it’s late. And he’s still stuck there, waiting for the explanation.

And there is none, not really. She tells him she’s a good shot.

Like that’s any reason to bring out a little pistol. Like there’s any reason to carry a pistol. Like there’s any reason at all.

And, she’s trying to explain over the roar of words in his head. And, he can’t hear her over the cracks that echo through the company apartments.

And, the words build. They build and they build and they build until they tumble out of him and drown hers out. They flow, a stream, a river, a torrent of words and thoughts and fears and everything he’s seen. And, it’s not enough. It’s never enough. He’s not good with words… he’s never been good with words…  
It will never be enough, they will never be enough. Because how can she understand unless she’s seen it. And, he can’t, he won’t… 

He doesn’t know what else to do, and he wants to run. He wants to press the stupid boots back into her hands, and run until he can’t stop. He wants to run to Jimmy’s, where it was safe until it wasn’t. He wants to run out west, to the ghost towns they say are still trying to hold on. To Tulsa or Durango or Brookings or Gallup. Run away to someplace with open space where the rent is lower and the work isn’t all for the company.

She bundles him into the car, and takes his hand, and presses the pen into his fingers. It’s not as familiar as the bics, not as good for drawing. He should be enjoying this ride, relishing it. The gig economy has given way to automation, and with that, the prices have hit a point he’ll never afford. And, here he is inside the butter leather interior of a car, and all he can do is wish he had a cheap ballpoint that he can blend with his shaking fingers so he can make her understand.

He doesn’t and he can’t. And, he wants to pull out her ring, and press it back into her hands. He want to tell her he can’t do this, even though he doesn’t know what this is. That there is no “this”. They’re strangers, bound together by something.

Instead, she stops the car at the empty shells of the abandoned apartments where they stayed that night, and tries to leads him by the hand. The role reversal should strike him, but it doesn’t. He doesn’t want this, doesn’t want to touch her. Doesn’t want to be near her, near her gun.

And, instead, he writes down a number for her. Writes down a number, and hopes beyond hope she’ll understand.

She presses a kiss to his cheek. Chaste and delicate and oh so intimate. Not the kissing you see on TV, somehow different and the same and so much more. It’s like that night. The one he can’t remember properly and can’t forget.

And then, she and her notebook and his half finished drawing are gone, and he needs to get back inside his apartment. And damn it, even though he’s shaken, he knows the way in. He’s done this too many times to get caught.

 

Three weeks later, he and Davey are drinking beers out on the fire escape. It’s a redundancy, the fire escape. They’re talking again in hushed voices about tings that shouldn’t be discussed. Things that you can’t say in company housing, not out loud in a way others can hear.

And, there’s a knock on the door. Charlie’s there, he said he’d get the door. Still, it’s hard to avoid the residual guilt of Charlie getting it. After… after… “affordable” care had been a lie. And he doesn’t know who to believe about what went wrong and what went right and who had been responsible for dismantling it. He only knows that urgent care sounded too expensive, and somehow, they’d ended up at the hospital far too late.  
At least they got to keep most of him. And, the parts he lost, he’s learning to do without. Slowly. Maybe. And while he struggles, there’s a paltry $50 a month from a long ignored plea to people’s better nature to help him get back on his feet, er foot.

The window sash slides up, and two figures slot themselves through. David and Saz exchange a greeting with contact that might be inappropriate. He doesn’t know though, because there she is. Kitty. And Saz says she’s here to help.

He doesn’t ask her how she thinks that will happen. He doesn’t ask her how many articles she’s written, and how many she’s gotten past the censors and the networks. He doesn’t ask her about any of those things. She’s pretty enough to get on air, she’s pretty enough and connected enough, but he’s not sure she can do it. 

He doesn’t ask her, and she doesn’t accuse him of being a novice revolutionary. Instead, she tells him that maybe it’s time. That one woman can make a difference, if she can take a stand. That she thinks she can amplify their voices. And, maybe that’s how it will get better.


End file.
